Abstract

Social media is the baby born out of the confluence of digital technology and human beings' desire to collaborate. Past researches in social media networks have mostly concentrated on investigation of large networks, which do not fully capture the micro-level dynamics of the network. In this study, an in-depth topological analysis of a small network (n=200) formed on Twitter during a 24 h period was carried out. The results showed that the network had both small-world and scale-free characteristics. Geo-spatiality revealed more interest by users in regions where the subject of tweets had its stake. The most influential nodes were those whose tweets got re-tweeted the most. Temporal analysis showed faster formation of network when there was a tweet of interest. Traditional news media had a powerful hold on the tweets being made by users. Communities formed around tweets of a certain theme and there was a common theme that kept the entire network together.

Key words: Twitter, social media analysis, NodeXL, social network analysis.